A fixed-content object is a container of digital information that, once created, remains fixed. Examples of objects that could be fixed include medical images, PDF documents, photographs, document images, static documents, financial records, e-mail, audio, and video. Altering a fixed-content object results in the creation of a new fixed-content object. A fixed-content object once stored becomes immutable.
Fixed-content digital data is often subject to regulatory requirements for availability, confidentiality, integrity, and retention over a period of many years. As such, fixed-content data stores grow without bounds and storage of these digital assets over long periods of time presents significant logistical and economic challenges.
To address the economic and logistical challenges associated with storing an ever growing volume of information for long periods of time, fixed-content storage systems implement a multi-tier storage hierarchy and apply Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) policies that determine the number of copies of each object, the location of each object, and the storage tier for each object. These policies will vary based on the content of each object, age of each object, and the relevance of the object to the business processes.
A multi-site, multi-tier storage system, large scale distributed fixed-content storage is needed, for example, to address the requirement for storing multiple billions of fixed-content data objects. These systems ensure the integrity, availability, and authenticity of stored objects while ensuring the enforcement of Information Lifecycle Management and regulatory policies. Examples of regulatory policies include retention times and version control.